Heirloom Recipe – Preserve Apricots

Heirloom Recipe from American Cookery, 1796

I love finding old recipes that I know some of my ancestors probably used in their own kitchens. And (being a non-cook) I have to remind myself that there’s no need for oven temperatures when you’re using a wood stove!

Preserve Apricots(my mom used to make apricot pie – wonder if she knew about this?)

Take your apricots and pare them, then stone what you can whole; give them a light boiling in a pint of water, or according to your quantity of fruit; then take the weight of your apricots in sugar, and take the liquor which you boil them in, and your sugar, and boil it till it comes to a sirrup, and give them a light boiling, taking of the scum as it rises; when the sirrup jellies, it is enough; then take up the apricots, and cover them with the jelly, and put cut paper over them, and lay them down when cold.

Or, take you plumbs before they have stones in them, which you may know by putting a pin through them, then codle them in many waters, till they are as green as grass; peel them and codle them again; you must take the weight of them in sugar and make a sirrup; put to your sugar a pint of water; then put them in, set them on the fire to boil slowly, till they be clear, skimming them often, and they will be very green. Put them up in glasses, and keep them for use.

[I had to look up ‘codle’; apparently it’s cooking in water just below the boiling point]

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Hi, I’m Nancy Hendrickson

Thanks for stopping by. I'm the author of the Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com and an instructor at Family Tree University. This photo was taken while I was visiting the farm where my dad and grandmother were born.